Pharos
by openPandora'sBox
Summary: Rodney is taken captive and tortured by humans in the Pegasus Galaxy. To maintain his sanity through the torture and the pain, he holds on to his moments with Jennifer like a beacon of light guiding him home. McKeller.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:**I do not own Stargate Atlantis.

A/N: Just a few warnings for some graphic descriptions of violence. The next chapter for this (the last) will be up within the next few days. I apologize ahead of time for the depressing tone of this one, but it had to come out and be written. As always, do let me know what you think.

Thanks to **Ethell** on GateWorld for some great feedback.

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Pharos

Chapter One

* * *

_"...And long after it's light was extinguished, memories of it glowed in the minds of men." - E.M. Forster_

* * *

_"What'd you dream about, Rodney?"_

_Somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, Rodney's mind attempted to sort out the words whispered softly to his ear._

_He clumsily fought the liquid pull of oblivion and lightly grasped the hand drawing lazy circles on his chest._

_"I have no idea what you're talking about," Rodney mumbled, his voice fading slightly._

_"Rodney."_

_"Shhhhhh..." Rodney whispered as he allowed his eyed to fall shut. He thought to maybe lead by example then they'd both get some rest._

"_Rodney." She was singing his name; wisps of air blowing enticingly against his ear as her lips moved softly against the side of his neck._

"_Shhh – oomph!"_

_One toned leg was thrown across his prone form and a very shapely body arranged itself not-so-delicately on top of him._

"_Rodney."_

"_Jennifer," he sang back to her and sighed, prying sleepy eyes open to gaze at her laughing face._

_She was bent forward, golden hair cascading down around her face. He could have reached up a few centimetres to toy with the ends of her lustrous hair, but moved his hands to settle her wriggling hips instead._

_She pouted playfully at him, eyes twinkling, as she stroked her hands over his shoulders. She batted long lashes, her hands gently caressing his chest._

"_Why won't you tell me, Rodney?" She inquired. "It seemed delightful. Was it not about me?" She all but purred into his ear._

"_One, because I still have no idea what you're talking about," he began his reply, but her hands stroking his stomach were making it difficult to remember his second reason._

"_I have ways of making you talk, McKay."_

"_Not so," Rodney stuttered._

_Her lips were trailing wet, hot kisses down his neck. Her hands venturing lower down his torso until that first touch of her nimble fingers sent all thought spiralling from his mind._

"_I think you're actually having the opposite effect," he helpfully pointed out._

_Rodney felt her smile against his shoulder then felt her hands stop their delicious ministrations._

_She rose up to rest her forehead against his. Laughing brown eyes met seriously frustrated blue ones and he could feel her body vibrating with suppressed laughter._

"_Like I said," she whispered huskily as she pressed a kiss to the tip of his nose. "I have some seriously cruel ways of making you talk."_

* * *

"Talk!" A deep voice bellowed. It carried, reverberating off the dark, dank walls of the cell, hitting him with near to equal force as the blow to his stomach.

Everything hurt; each breath sending daggers of pain dancing across his ribcage.

Rodney had lost count of the number of times he'd been punched, kicked, slapped, and whipped. They'd all started blending together at some point; his body no longer differentiating between the blunt, bone-cracking force of a fist or the sharp crack of a whip breaking skin.

Pain was pain. His nerves so abused, he wondered if they'd ever stop burning.

"I could talk," he struggled to speak the words through cracked lips. "I'm really good at talking."He sounded drunken even to his own ears, but his head wasn't making any sense anyway. His thoughts were jumbled, he couldn't focus. And there was that ever present nothingness lurking at the back of his mind, beckoning him over, singing to him, lulling him to peace, promising his beaten body a chance to rest...

A sharp slap to the face brought him back to reality.

"You ain't goin' nowhere 'till I get my answers."

So loud. That voice was always so loud and his ears were always ringing.

"Shhhh..." Rodney hushed under his breath.

Suddenly all he could breathe were noxious fumes and hot air. He cracked swollen lids open a fraction and would have reeled back in fright at the blurry vision of the scarred and pockmarked face before him, but his muscles had ceased obeying him hours and hours ago. He'd become nothing more than dead weight hanging from chains.

"You don' want me to bring my friend," the voice cautioned softly.

Rodney gagged at the foul breath he was forced to inhale and unsuccessfully attempted to avoid the spittle sent his way with every word. It hit his cheek to mix with the blood on his face.

"I'm a gentle soul you see," the voice rasped. "Give me the codes I need to get to Atlantis and this," he gestured with one meaty fist around the dismal dungeon. "All this stops. You ain't gotta hurt no more."

His squat, smashed nose sat tip to tip with Rodney's. His dark, bottomless eyes boring holes into a pale, unseeing stare and he waited. And continued to wait with patience unexpected of one of his profession.

This patience was rewarded with a weak stream of blood and spit when Rodney tried to coordinate his facial muscles long enough to return the favour.

The bestial man stepped back slowly, deliberately, wiping at the offensive fluid with the back of his hand.

"Believe you me. You'll wish you hadn' done that. My friend ain't so nice. He makes everyone talk. Everyone." With those final words, he stepped aside to reveal a diminutive figure cloaked in darkness.

Through the swollen slits of his lids and the blur of tears, mucus, and blood, Rodney couldn't distinguish any specific features. He saw only a small man, of slight build, shorter than average, gliding delicately towards him.

"Hello, Dr. McKay." His voice was higher pitched than the other man's - his words devoid of accent or affectation. "I'm told you are being particularly difficult."

Rodney watched the figure give a slight nod and suddenly he was sent plummeting to the floor, his body no longer suspended from the ceiling.

His shoulders screamed in agony at the sudden change in position. His legs, unaccustomed to the weight of his body any longer, simply refused to bear him up and he landed in an unceremonious heap on the wet, mould-ridden floor.

Before his abused body could relish in the relief of rest, Rodney felt hard hands grab his upper arms and he was painfully lifted off the floor and laid on a cold, hard surface. Rusty metal shackles bit into the abrasions on his wrists. He felt them slam shut around his ankles and tried to struggle. Weak attempts to pull himself free only drew chuckles from his new captor.

"That is good, Doctor. I was worried that my colleague had beaten all the life out of you. Then what would there have been left for me?" That cold voice spoke almost too softly, too calmly, vainly attempting to hide madness behind a facade of civility.

"Now, "the small man continued once satisfied that the shackles would hold his captive. "I will not ask you to speak. You seem an intelligent man. I am also an intelligent man."

Unseeing and dizzy from pain and movement, it sounded like the voice had no fixed origin. It took Rodney's disoriented brain several seconds to realize that the soft footfalls meant the man was encircling him – like a predator stalking its prey.

"You know that to make the pain stop, you must tell me what I want to know. So I will not say it again.

"Let us begin."

And so they did with a flood of fire that sent all of Rodney's nerve endings screaming.

His body arched upwards off the table, his muscles spasming uncontrollably. There was no part of him that didn't know agony. It was complete, all consuming, and when his brain thought that it should stop because nothing so horrible could last forever, it just kept on going; a world of fire with no end.

Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, it ceased.

Rodney desperately dragged stale air into starved lungs. His body still in aftershocks, twitching sporadically with leftover current.

"Again."

Fire. He knew only fire for a few brief seconds before he knew nothing.

It didn't last as long this time or maybe he'd blissfully lost consciousness. He couldn't focus long enough to figure it out.

Through the ringing in his ears, Rodney could make out soft cries in the underground chamber – whimpers and groans.

_Me_, he realized and wondered how much more torture he could endure before his body refused to allow it any longer.

_You can make it end sooner_, a traitorous little voice whispered through the fog in his head.

_No_, he replied meekly.

_Yes._

"No," he groaned aloud.

And the burning fire was upon him again.

_They'll understand_, the voice bellowed for attention in his head. _When they see you, they'll understand._

_Surely they will_, Rodney convinced himself.

This was just too much. No human being could be expected to withstand this level of torture. Every second he spent enveloped in this all-encompassing agony was another second of his life he knew he didn't have.

Not even Sheppard. Not even he could withstand this.

It was only a code. One little code and the burning would end and he could sleep and breathe and go home.

Rodney opened his mouth, ready to end it all, and screamed.

* * *

"_Oh. My. God!"_

_Rodney snorted into Jennifer's hair at those unexpected words. He would have done more, but he didn't think his body was ready for movement quite so soon._

"_Remind me to annoy you more often."_

"_I think," Rodney mumbled. "That would be the death of us."_

"_Speak for yourself," she retorted. "I still have several more wild nights of passion left in me."_

"_Well," Rodney started, attempting to throw some authority behind his words, "Speaking as a man more than several years your senior," and grunted as her hand collided with the side of his ribs. "I think I must beg off any more wild passion for tonight."_

_Jennifer giggled at his words, kissing his shoulder as he gracelessly pushed himself to rest face down on the pillow beside her._

_One leg still encircling his waist, she turned on her side to gaze lovingly at the man who never ceased to surprise her._

_She ruffled one hand through his hair, down the nape of his neck, to rub lazy circles on his broad back until he turned his head towards her._

"_Careful," Rodney warned. "You're beginning to look moony."_

_This time Jennifer let out a hearty laugh and kissed him soundly on the mouth. She pulled back long enough to watch his eyes go dark then returned her lips to his in a gentler meeting._

_She pulled away several seconds later and rested her head on the pillow beside him, barely a breath away._

"_Can I tell you a secret?" She whispered against the delicate skin of his cheek._

_Rodney raised an eyebrow at the question and nodded, his nose brushing against hers in the process._

"_I never wanted to come here. Not really."_

_Her hand had continued its gentle caress across his back, stroking along his spine, digging in slightly where she felt a corded muscle._

"_It was my dad actually who convinced me. Not that he knew exactly what he was convincing me to do, but he'd always been there to make sure I never gave up. Never made the easy decision because something else would hurt too much or seemed too difficult."_

"_You made the right choice," Rodney mumbled against her lips. "Or rather he did."_

_Jennifer pulled back just enough that Rodney could make out the brilliant smile spreading across her face._

"_He did, didn't he?"_

_Her hand continued its blind traverse across the planes of his back – soft and cool against his skin. Fingertips danced across his skin, stroked between his shoulder blades, ran lightly through the fine hair at the base of his skull, before running back down to lie at the small of his back._

_The gentle caress of her palm, the sensation of her skin skimming along his, all lulled him into a blissfully deep slumber._

* * *

He fought not to scream as the sharp edge of the blade traced fine lines across the skin of his forearm. Bright red blood seeped into the broken skin, trickling down the curve of his arm to drip onto the table beneath him.

Rodney bit his lip until he tasted blood, cast his eyes towards the ceiling and struggled not to move, not to utter a sound. He refused to give the man the satisfaction of hearing him cry out in pain.

"I can keep going, Doctor." The dark figure's voice sliced through the musty air, as sharp as the dagger he wielded. "But I don't have to." That voice was close to his ear now, whispering dark thoughts, "You can make it stop. You know how to make it stop."

"You've got it all wrong, you know." Rodney's tortured throat struggled to form coherent sounds; his voice no louder than a whisper and harsher than sandpaper.

"It's the threat of torture that really makes people talk." Talking would help keep his mind off the blade now making minute incisions into the skin of his upper arm.

The first tiny cut had stung, but no more. It had barely registered in his mind. His body had become a veritable catalogue of broken bones, lesions, and contusions. What was one more paper cut?

But one cut had quickly turned into two and two into ten and ten had become a countless array of delicate lines traced across his pale skin. Soon, he'd been writhing in pain, vainly attempting to move away from the wretched blade. Now he knew his only option was to endure it until the blissful oblivion of sleep claimed him.

"Pain is scary. People tend to do whatever possible to avoid it." What was he saying? He was babbling.

"Then you, Doctor, are a unique sort of man," the nameless man replied thoughtfully. "But in my many years of experience I have discovered that the threat of pain is nowhere near as scary and...convincing...as pain itself."

Rodney fought to bite back the whimper rising in his throat as a hand pressed down on the multitude of abrasions on his arm. He couldn't suppress the groan escaping when that hand raked nails down the length of his arm, trailing blood in its wake.

"One code," that merciless man whispered, his hand punctuating the request by applying more pressure.

"No," Rodney gasped.

"Do you know what it is you are protecting?" That thin voice questioned softly. "A city that does not belong to you. A city that belongs to this galaxy and its people, not to some wayward explorers from another galaxy seeking technological advancement." Anger was beginning to claw its way into the preternaturally calm voice.

"Do you know what my people could become with the knowledge of the Ancestors at our disposal? What all the people of this galaxy could become? Yet you claim the right to dole it out like rations for the poor." Every word he spat out as if ridding himself of putrid waste. Each sentence punctuated by a new cut, a deeper cut; more spilled blood left to trail over the curves of his arms, legs, shoulders, to trail hotly down his body and pool on the surface beneath him. More pain.

"Well, we've finally had enough. We've taken matters into our own hands."

"By kidnapping the head scientist and torturing him to within an inch of his life?" Rodney stuttered and stumbled, but succeeded in spitting out the words. "That surely bodes well for what you could become. I can't possibly imagine why we refused to give you access to the database."

Rodney swallowed back the bubble of hysteria threatening to rise up to the surface from the pit of his stomach. The utter ridiculousness of the situation wasn't lost on him, however.

In their single-minded attempt to grab a hold of the Ancients' knowledge base, these people had forgotten that which was most necessary for any civilization's fruitful advancement.

Hysterical or not, the situation was at the very least laughable.

A snort, a giggle, and then a full blown guffaw exploded from deep within Rodney's chest. The unfamiliar sound reverberated off the walls of his cell, multiplying into a cacophony of sound long unheard in the bowels of this earth.

If Rodney hadn't felt the sharp stab of his ribs protesting the sudden movement and the harsh scraping against his beleaguered throat, he wouldn't have thought himself still capable of such a sound.

The blade paused mid-stroke against his chest, the tip quivering slightly as the dark figure loomed over Rodney, dumbfounded at such a response.

The hysteria Rodney had for so long managed to suppress now demanded to be released, and he was helpless to stop it.

Countless hours of mindless, excruciating agony culminated in one long series of gasping snorts and outright laughter. His lungs struggled to fill and refill with precious air as his body shook from the sheer force of each breath.

The blade resumed its course along his chest – cutting harder and deeper this time – its bearer furious.

The pain was inconsequential. Rodney was at the mercy of a brain too long besieged by agony.

The blade cut deeper and cut longer, his body bled, but Rodney just laughed and laughed and laughed.

* * *

To be continued...

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Please read and review! Reviews are love.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: MGM owns SGA, not I.**

A/N: Here's the final chapter of this story. I'm sorry if it's not quite what you all were expecting, but I hope you get some enjoyment out of it anyway. As always, let me know what you think. Even if you hate it.

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Pharos - Chapter 2

* * *

"_You're not serious?" Jennifer laughed heartily. She wiped absently at the tears of laughter trailing down her cheeks and braced herself against her office desk._

"_Oh, I kid you not," Jeannie answered gleefully, her cheeks pink and eyes sparkling. "There was batter everywhere. The kitchen was absolutely covered in it. No surface was spared."_

_Rodney frowned at the scene before him from his undiscovered location by the office door. He'd arrived early for his lunch date with Jennifer, just in time to overhear that last exchange. He quickly ducked back around the corner to avoid detection._

_As he saw it, he had two options available; on the one hand he could break up the laugh-at-Rodney's-antics festival his sister had initiated, and on the other hand he could leave the ladies to their fun and think of some creative methods of sibling revenge later._

_But as enticing as the former option of sparing himself further humiliation seemed, there existed a small, traitorous part of him which secretly relished this closeness that had flourished between the two women._

_Truth be told, that part of him wasn't actually that small or really all that traitorous. _

_Incidentally, as his relationship continued to defy all of Sheppard's cynical predictions, Rodney found himself increasingly concerned about Jennifer's relationship with the only other woman of real import in his life – Jeannie._

_He'd been told that they'd butted heads during his nearly fatal foray into parasitic infections and had never completely shed the thought that Jeannie might hold that against her for life._

_Over more, he was rather concerned at the mere fact that this did, in fact, concern him at all._

_A hand on his arm awakened him to the fact that stealth was definitely not his strong suit._

* * *

Wakefulness came on suddenly this time, like a splash of cold water on his face. There was no soft pull or gentle tug out of the realm of dreaming and as suddenly as he'd been jolted awake, his senses came back to him; the excruciatingly continual sting of countless cuts across his skin, the deep throbbing of what he suspected were bones either broken or, at the very least, fractured, and the sharp stabbing protest of every muscle tensing as he prepared himself for the next inevitable blow or stab.

But it never came. Yet, Rodney waited, so accustomed had he become to the abuse of his prison.

Seconds ticked away into minutes before, at last, Rodney allowed himself the luxury of relaxing.

The abject silence of his cell finally hit him – the absolute stillness and unnatural quiet. There were no shuffling footsteps or heavy thuds of nightmarish instruments striking the stone floor. He couldn't hear the frighteningly calm, cool tone of his torturer's voice nor his slow deep breathing.

For the first time since being taken prisoner, Rodney realized he was completely and utterly alone.

The only sounds were those of him clumsily testing the chains binding him to the metal table, and of his stuttered, gasping breaths as he tried to inhale past the swell of his throat and through the blood and phlegm of his broken nose.

Time meant nothing to him anymore. He'd long since given up on keeping track of the hours and days he'd spent trapped in this hell. He had no conception of how long he spent attempting to free himself from the chains that had embedded themselves into his flesh. They tore at his wrists and ankles as he struggled, ripping open older wounds, blood making their hold slippery but no less firm.

With each failed attempt at freedom, Rodney felt the claw of desperation in the pit of stomach. He strained against his bonds, jerking his arms and legs upwards, sideways, every way possible, but the chains were unyielding.

His limbs moved of their own accord. He could hear his breaths echoing off the stone walls; hear them come back to him as sobs as he fought for an escape that seemed perpetually out of reach.

A feather light touch to his arm stopped him cold. But where he normally would have flinched away, Rodney simply turned his head and pried open eyes that had long since swollen shut. He could only discern a form through the haze of tears; more shapely than the small man responsible for inflicting such horrors upon him, but definitely as slender. He could, if he focused hard enough, begin to distinguish some colour within the shadows. Gold?

"Jennifer?" His mouth formed the word, but his brain refused to transmit the sounds.

He stared, incredulous, at the woman before him. She looked for all the world as if she'd just stepped out of her quarters on Atlantis – newly showered, cleanly clothed, untouched by the darkness surrounding him.

"No," Rodney cried hoarsely, shaking his head against the table in denial.

There was no way this was possible. Absolutely no conceivable way that Jennifer could be here with him, like this.

A hand reached around to cradle his cheek, delicately avoiding the many bruises decorating the skin. He felt a gentle pressure against his split lips then his vision was full of her as she bent over him, her face mere centimetres from his.

She smiled down at him, a beatific smile, as her finger traced the cuts on his face; her face aglow with that sweet, pure light and he felt a small measure of sanity return.

Strands of her hair tickled his cheek, but he relished in the familiar feel of its silky softness, in the cool touch of her hands on his cheeks, his neck, arms. Everywhere she trailed those long, delicate fingers the pain simply evaporated.

His eyes fell shut once more as he sank into the cocoon of warmth and pleasure she brought to him, forgetting for a moment where he was.

But he remembered again soon enough. He also remembered, with a violent shudder, why this was impossible.

Rodney lifted heavy lids, ready to protest this hallucination, and found her frowning down at him.

She shook her head sadly before slowly lowering herself further until her lips reached his ear.

"They're coming for you, Rodney," she whispered.

His ear tingled slightly where he imagined her lips had brushed against him, a shiver running down his spine. Her hand reached across his body to tenderly smooth back his hair.

She rose up slightly - enough to catch his gaze.

Her eyes lacked their customary sparkle, he noticed. They peered into him sadly, longingly, as she whispered to him once more, "Just hold on a little longer, Rodney. Just hold on to me."

* * *

_"Just grab my hand, Rodney. It's not much further." Jennifer reached back, rolling her eyes when Rodney scowled and swiped at her proffered hand in disgust before stopping altogether to lean heavily against the gnarled bark of a tree._

_"You forgot to mention the nearly vertical climb to our destination in your travel brochure, Dr. Keller." Rodney inhaled sharply as a stabbing pain in his side forced him to reconsider his initial plan of sitting down._

_He glared silently at the instrument of his torture, the woman who'd convinced him (how he knew not) to take a hike to some place the locals had claimed was "magnificent to behold"._

_"How do you even know it's going to be there? Or that it's as wonderful as they say?" Rodney struggled not to gasp for breath mid-sentence. "I mean they don't exactly live exciting lives. We could be heading towards a bubbling brook for all you know."_

_Jennifer turned back sharply to glare at him. She thrust the water canteen with more force than was absolutely necessary, in his opinion, into his stomach before reaching back to secure her loose hair into a ponytail._

_"I'm just saying," Rodney declared._

_"So you've been saying since we left." _

_Exasperated, Jennifer spun back towards the trail they'd been following for the better part of an hour and resumed her trek._

_He didn't quite understand exactly why he did it – aggravate her on purpose. He knew he loved watching the colour rise to her cheeks and her tawny eyes sparkle dangerously. Her lips would purse nearly imperceptibly (of course, he would notice) and her eyebrows would rise ever so delicately._

_Sheppard had likened it to 10 year-old Rodney puling a girl's ponytail to get her attention. But Rodney had never pulled a girl's ponytail and he already had her attention – the thought made him grin idiotically – so maybe this was his way of catching up on opportunities lost._

_Jeannie never commented generally. She simply resorted to flashing incomprehensibly smug and pointed looks whenever she happened to be in the same room as the both of them._

_It was definitely a curiosity – his increasing attachment to Jennifer. And hers to him even more so._

_Ten minutes later, Rodney was in no position to gloat. The sight really was rather magnificent, as far as waterfalls went._

_A peek through the corner of his eye convinced him Jennifer wouldn't be so receptive to a crack about Niagara Falls, so he kept quiet and just let her enjoy the view. That was new for him._

"_Lunch?" Rodney asked hopefully._

_To Jennifer's quizzical expression he replied, "Well, I just thought you might want to stop and have lunch here. We're not due back at the gate for another three hours and since we did walk all this way-" Rodney dutifully ignored the slight eye roll from his companion,"-I figured it made sense for us to just..." Rodney shrugged, suddenly embarrassed, "...sit?" He finished lamely._

"_Of course, if you don't want to," he quickly amended. "Then we'll just head back now. I don't need to rest. We can just go?"_

_Jennifer smiled and reached up to lightly grasp the back of his neck, pulling him closer to settle a soft kiss on his parted lips._

"_We'll stay. Thanks."_

_Rodney took a moment and cleared his throat before replying, "So what's on the menu then?"_

_Jennifer reached into the front pocket of her TAC vest to whip out a PowerBar. She held it out proudly, an enormous grin spreading across her face._

"_Oooh," Rodney whistled with mock glee. "Don't mind if I do."  
He reached for the proffered article, only to have it snatched back quickly by the still smiling CMO._

_"Nuh-uh," she reprimanded with a shake of her head. "Get your own, McKay."_

_Settling themselves down side-by-side near the shore of the small lake, Rodney allowed himself a few moments to revel in the sheer normalcy and familiarity of the scene; Jennifer leaning comfortably against his side while thoughtfully munching away on her PowerBar. Her gaze was focused on the vision of dark water as it cascaded down into brilliant white foam before flowing into the crystalline blue water of the lake._

_It was peaceful and quiet and they were alone – utterly alone for the first time in even Rodney didn't know when. He was sure there was a male code-of-conduct rule somewhere that dictated this to be a perfect time for him to make a move. In fact, he suspected Harlequin had some similar governing laws, but he was surprisingly content to just be. To just sit with her and see what she saw, hear what she heard, and – if not enjoy it – then to at least let her do so._

_Was that love?_

_Rodney swallowed hard, fighting the urge to wipe his suddenly very sweaty palms on his pants._

_There was that word. And there was that very predictable reaction._

_"Rodney?" Jennifer tilted her head to spare him a worried look and asked, "Is everything okay?"_

_Startled, Rodney fought the instinct to stutter and mumble, and willed himself to relax._

_"What? Yes, yes. Everything's fine." He met her concerned gaze with what he hoped was a reassuring smile._

_"I was just thinking." Her expression suggested she was expecting him to clarify._

_"About Madison," he added quickly and without thought._

_Madison? His brain laughed at him._

_"Madison?" Apparently Jennifer found the idea as bizarre as his brain._

_"Ummm...yes. Madison. You know, Jeannie's kid. My - "_

_"I know who Madison is, Rodney," Jennifer interrupted. "I'm just surprised that you're thinking about her. You don't like kids." She stated that last part very matter-of-factly._

_"Not generally, no. But she kind of... grows on you."_

_Jennifer let out a delighted laugh before resting her head back onto his shoulder and looking up to peer at him through her eyelashes._

_"Rodney. You said that with about as much affection as you would the idea of fungus growing on you."_

_He shuddered at the thought and bit into his PowerBar._

_"Don't give this galaxy ideas," he replied around a mouthful of mashed protein._

_Jennifer giggled once more before casting her gaze back on the water._

_"So," she was trying to be as nonchalant as possible. "Why were you thinking of Madison?"_

_Seeing as how he really hadn't been, this stood to make things tricky. Luckily, Rodney had a Plan B._

_"Jeannie emailed me today," he said then took another bite. "Madison's birthday is in a few months and she wants to make sure we'll be there."_

_ "That'll be nice. I don't mind," Jennifer replied immediately._

_Rodney frowned and stared down at the golden hair on the top of her head._

_"You don't?"_

_"Of course not."_

_"She's turning six."_

_"An exciting age for five year-olds and their mothers I would imagine."_

_"It's hardly a turning point in her life."_

_Jennifer tilted her head back and met his bright blue eyes._

_"Rodney?" She inquired seriously. The twinkle in her eyes betrayed her however - at least to him. He could always read those eyes._

_"Yes, Jennifer?" His tone matched hers._

_"Are you trying to talk me out if it? Is there someone else you'd rather take as your date to the most important birthday your niece has ever had?"_

_"Heidi Klum?"_

_Jennifer blinked once, twice, before throwing her head back and laughing heartily._

_Rodney grinned at the sight of her wiping tears from her eyes and welcomed the kiss she laughingly planted on his smiling mouth._

_Abrupt static in his ear interrupted their embrace before he could take things any further._

_"Rodney, come in." Sheppard's voice crackled over the air waves._

_Rodney sighed, mouthing an apology against Jennifer's lips before responding, "Sheppard? We're not due back for a couple of hours."_

_"Something's come up with one of our off-world teams and it looks like we're going to need the Doc."_

_Jennifer stood quickly, meticulously dusting of her uniform and waited for Rodney to do the same._

_A shot rang out before Rodney even had the chance to get his feet under him, piercing the relative quiet and sending his head snapping upwards to locate Jennifer, ready to pull her down and behind cover._

_He met here eyes first, those bright telling eyes, and watched them shift from gleeful to shocked to simply painful._

_Her face went pale - shockingly white and devoid of all colour._

_Rodney's eyes refused to listen to his brain and he lowered his gaze._

_A patch of bright red blood blossomed across the left side of her chest, spreading rapidly from just above her breast to everywhere else._

_Horror and denial warred within his brain with what his eyes were telling him, keeping him rooted to the spot. Jennifer's sudden inability to stand and rapid collapse had him staggering forward on hands and knees to catch her head before it hit the ground._

_One arm supported her back while his other shaking hand moved to cover the hole in her chest._

_So small. So small, his eyes noted. How could something so small do so much?_

_His brain refused to answer. His brain reused to do anything._

_"Jen?" He was sure he'd said her name, but he heard nothing except for her rasping breaths and the shuffle of grass and dirt as her feet moved in reaction to the pain._

_Her eyes, pain-filled and dazed, bore into his, latched on, and refused to let him go._

_"Rodney?" She struggled to say his name through the haze of agony, the fight for breath, and the blood welling in her throat. A trickle of it made its way to the corner of her mouth and she coughed up a lot more._

_Rodney pressed harder against her chest, vainly attempting to stem the flow of blood. So much blood. How could there be so much blood?_

_"Hold on, Jen. Just hold on-" His voice cracked when he felt her hand clamp around his wrist._

_"Please," he begged, his voice barely a croak._

_Rodney felt tears come into his eyes, felt them splash onto his cheeks, and he couldn't care._

_"Please, Jen."_

_Her fingers spasmed tightly around his wrist. Her brow furrowed as she struggled to move her lips, to force air through them in a semblance of coherent sound._

_"Don't," he whispered fervently as he pressed harder and tried to ignore the warm blood seeping through his fingers, soaking into his clothing and the ground beneath them._

_"Just hold on. You have to." He was sobbing now as he spoke; his tears falling onto her cheeks to meld with the trails running down her face._

_Those beautiful, deep brown eyes he could spend hours just gazing into, in which he saw so much, were quickly draining of light and of life. They no longer registered pain, only shock. They stared at him now devoid of recognition, of fear, of question, of anything._

_He could feel her heartbeat slowing under his hand. Her blood flowed through his fingers less freely. Her fingers twitched once more before falling limply from his wrist and onto the ground._

_He stared – just stared – as her eyes left his to gaze unfocused and unseeing at a spot just beyond his shoulder. He watched, his brain numb – utterly numb – as her chest stopped rising and her eyes stopped everything._

_Frozen. He was frozen in that moment - the moment when everything became nothing._

_Rough hands jolted him, pulling him away from Jennifer. His hand left her heart._

_"What? No!"_

_Rodney struggled weakly to free himself, but his captors' hands only tightened painfully around his arms._

_He was being dragged farther and farther away from Jennifer. Perhaps it was the sight of her body falling back onto the cold unforgiving ground, her hair spilling out like a cloud around a face devoid of life, turned towards him, eyes boring sightlessly into him, that finally forced his brain to catch up with reality. Or perhaps it was something as simple as the sensation of her blood cooling on his hands and the bruising grip of the men behind him_

_Rodney struggled harder this time – furiously trying to throw his attackers off – digging his feet into the ground and screaming, "No!"_

_He succeeded in freeing one arm, but was pulled back violently before he could move closer to Jennifer._

_"Let me go!"_

_He struggled and thrashed, but kept moving farther and farther away; her body growing smaller until he could no longer distinguish the colour of her eyes._

_"Jennifer!" He bellowed desperately. "Jennifer."_

* * *

With a strangled cry, Rodney thrashed and shot upright. Blind and struggling to draw breath through a throat tight with fear, gasping as daggers of pain stabbed into his heaving chest, Rodney reached up to grasp his head with both hands. His head felt like it was going to explode. Like his skull had shrunk and his brained throbbed agonizingly for relief.

Rodney froze, his aches momentarily forgotten for that single moment as clarity rushed into his head and realization hit him with sickening force.

He forced his eyes open, painfully and slowly. The swelling made it impossible to open them beyond slits, but it was enough to make out the green curtain once the tears had cleared and he'd carefully wiped the mucus from his eyes.

He fixated on the pristine, white bandages wrapped securely around his wrists, then on the cleanliness of his scraped palms and torn fingernails.

His muscles still ached and burned, but not with the ferocity with which he'd grown accustomed. He seemed to feel everything as though a blanket had been cast between himself and his nerves, effectively separating his brain from his body.

Although, the increasing nausea in his stomach was becoming all too real and hard to ignore as it clawed through his bowels, cramping his abdominal muscles, and sending his tortured throat into spasms and gagging.

Before Rodney could contemplate whether he actually had anything to heave, his stomach rebelled forcing him to double over, heaving and struggling not to topple face first into the bed pan which had miraculously appeared in his lap to catch the pitiful contents of his stomach.

A reassuring hand settled itself between his shoulder blades as his stomach continued trying to expel things that weren't there. He was reduced to dry heaving until he could force his muscles to relax.

Completely drained of what little energy he'd been in possession of, Rodney fell back against soft pillows and clean sheets. He turned his head to catch a glimpse of the person taking the bedpan away before coming to stand against his infirmary bed.

"Sheppard?" Rodney croaked. His voice was faint and weak and barely recognizable.

"Hey buddy." Sheppard's whispered reply pierced through the slight ringing in Rodney's ears and sounded so real, so very _there_, that Rodney almost sobbed with relief.

This was all real.

How many times had he had this exact dream of being back on Atlantis, rescued from his torturers and safe? How many timed had he been viciously awoken by another painful kick, forced to endure countless hours of unbearable agony instead?

But this, here, with his stomach still a quivering mess, and his eyes so sensitive to what little light there was, felt excruciatingly and incredibly real.

But that meant something else hadn't been a dream. Even his brain, as tortured and assaulted as it was wouldn't do her the dishonour of pretending it had never happened.

Tears welled up in his eyes once more. Not from pain this time, but from a bone deep sorrow. He supposed that was a sort of pain. One he thought had the ability to destroy him where nothing else could have.

"Jennifer." He mouthed her name, unable to speak it through the lump in his throat and the knife twisting in his heart.

John raised his hand, meaning to rest it comfortingly on Rodney's shoulder, but stopped as he watched his friend sink deeper, seemingly shrinking into the infirmary bed.

This wasn't something a friendly touch or kind joke could heal. Time, John supposed, was the only thing that stood a chance of working. Time and patience.

So he simply stood by Rodney's side as the seconds ticked by into minutes, watching helplessly as Rodney cried silently and violently, and drew deep, gasping breaths.

His own heart was on the verge of breaking with every tear he watched fall and trail down Rodney's face to drip unnoticed off his jaw, but he simply stood in silence by the man he would call his best friend, simmering with anger, and waited.

Waited for Rodney to need him so he could finally do something.

"She was there."

John's head jerked down, waiting for Rodney to say more – to say anything.

"In my cell. Right before you came, I think. She was there." His voice was hoarse, his tone unchanging as he spoke.

"She couldn't have been. I know that. I thought she was a hallucination. A figment-" His voice broke, unable to speak the words that relegated her permanently to the role of another lost character of Atlantis.

Eyes still shut tightly, Rodney brought forth his last image of her. Not as she'd been, unreal, in his prison cell. But the last flesh and blood time he'd seen her laughing and golden and loving, and so alive in his arms. How quickly that had changed into a nightmarish reality.

Rodney's eyes snapped open, unwilling to watch her grow cold and lifeless all over again. He met John's unreadable gaze, so different from Jennifer's own transparency that he was forced to laugh. Bitterly.

He nearly choked on the sound.

"I just want to go home, John."

"Rodney."

Rodney shook his head. "No."

"It's not like in the movies, John. It doesn't happen in slow motion. You don't have all the time in the world to say all your last words or any last words," he said. "It's not dramatic or poignant, touching or moving. It's bloody and it hurts and right now, at this very moment, I can't get the feel of her blood off my hands and the image of her lifeless eyes out of my head.

"I should be thinking of everything else. I should be thinking of her as she was before some asshole with a superiority complex got hold of a gun and decided to go shoot the one person in my life I-" He couldn't say it. Not now. Maybe never. He'd never said it to the one person who needed to hear it most and now he couldn't say it at all.

Rodney cast unbearably sad and tired eyes towards John, pleading with him to understand. "I never told her. Not even then when she lay bleeding and dying in my arms."

His head fell back onto the pillows and he closed his eyes on the world, calling back to his first happy memories on Atlantis then to his happy memories with Jennifer. Soon enough, they started becoming one and the same and he wondered when that had happened. When had his life begun to revolve so fully around one person? When had she become more real, more important, and steadying to him than all his calculations, formulas, and theorems?

Somewhere along the line, she had become more important to Rodney than Zed-PMs and astrophysics, and now he was lost like a ship at sea in a turbulent storm. The waves were pummeling him from all sides, he couldn't get his bearings, and all he wanted to do was just get home. The problem was he didn't think he could remember where home was or how to get there or if it would even matter without her there to meet him.

Was that love?

* * *

Please read and review! I'll love you for it!


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